Emily Monacelli / Special to the GazetteIncoming Western Michigan University juniors Michelle LaCherite of Dewitt, Mich., and Alyssa Arseneau of Champion, Mich., take photos of the Cathedral Notre-Dame of Paris, a popular tourist site. The students were waiting to take a boat tour of Paris on a "bateau-mouche," a passenger tour boat, on the Seine River.

Editor's Note: Emily Monacelli is a student at Western Michigan University and a correspondent for the Kalamazoo Gazette. She and 10 other WMU students are in Paris as part of a study-abroad program. She has been sending occassional reports to this blog.

There are some activities you simply must do if ever given the chance. Touring Paris, buying chintzy souvenirs and taking too many pictures of the Eiffel Tower top the list.
For this reason, we spent the first week in Paris acting more as tourists than as students. We walked the extravagant gardens of Versailles, traveled to the Loire Valley to see the magnificent castles built there, and climbed Notre Dame's spiral staircases like millions had before us. We got little sleep and paid too much for dinner at corner cafes.

Five long days were hardly enough to scratch the surface of Paris. Now that I have settled down in Lyon, I can reflect on was one of the longest, most exhausting but most memorable weeks I've ever had.

We arrived at Charles de Gaulle Airport Tuesday, June 26, at about 2 a.m. Kalamazoo time. Red-eyed and lugging heavy bags, my first thought was "Where is the nearest Starbucks?"

Emily Monacelli / Special to the GazetteWMU student Nicole Spaulding, of Grand Rapids, calls her parents from a telephone booth in Paris. Telephone booths in France do not take money; each student had to buy a prepaid phone card in order to call home.

Our motor coach, what I had envisioned to be a large, spacious ride, had just enough seats to fit the 15 of us. We loaded our bags, which was an adventure unto itself.
Our tour guide hefted my rolling suitcase -- which, according to her, was filled with concrete -- onto the coach. We wrestled through the mounds of bags in the motor coach, and after we were packed in like "les sardines," we were off to explore the magnificent city that is Paris.

By the end of that day, we had toured the Musee d'Orsay, had ordered our first French meal -- sandwiches on French baguettes as long as my forearm -- and had seen the Eiffel Tower and the famous shopping strip, L'Avenue des Champs-Elysees.
We learned that about 25 million people live in the historical city of Paris, while 9 million people live in the suburbs, according to our tour guide. About 24 hours after we left for Paris, we finally slept.

That next day, Thursday, June 28 was my most memorable day in Paris. Suited up in my comfortable tennis shoes with camera in hand, I could understand why Parisians scoff at tourists.

Emily Monacelli / Special to the GazetteFrom left, Western Michigan University students Allison Carmack, Alyssa Arseneau and Erick Skowronski look at a map of the Musee du Louvre to find where the Egyptian artwork is located. The museum, a popular tourist attraction, also was a palace where French royalty lived.

At the Louvre snapped pictures of Greek sculptures, stood in line to see the Mona Lisa up close, and were generally herded around the palace. After eating yet another incredibly overpriced, touristy lunch, we were off to do what we pleased in the city.
I spent that afternoon in a tunnel of bones, among 7 million dead Parisians. The Catacombs of Paris are located in the city's old limestone quarries. The quarries serve as a mass tomb for some Parisians, after improper burials caused contamination in the 1700s.

We walked into a dark tunnel, with the only glow provided by light fixtures on the sides of the stone walls. Rocks crunched under our feet, atop the dirt floor.

My stomach churned as we walked the long, winding tunnel to enter the catacombs. The tunnel was about 8 feet across, and on either side of it sat rows upon rows of bones and skulls, real human remains.

The sight took my breath away. Each of those skulls once was a living human being; each had its own story. Today it sits among millions of other skeletons underneath the busy metropolitan streets of Paris.

A sign at the entrance of the catacombs warned people of prosecution if they were caught stealing any bones. When I saw that sign, I laughed, but now I understood why. The bones were piled neatly, one on one, there to touch, and to take, if one so dared.
Although I knew many other people had walked the catacombs before me, and many other tourists were with me, I felt like I had discovered a piece of untold history.
The tunnel was morbid, yet peaceful. I silently paid my respects to the people who found their final resting place there.

The hour-long journey through the Catacombs was a sobering experience on this otherwise wild ride of Paris. I was intrigued; I wanted to know the stories of each of those skulls, of every last bone. I wanted to know if they had sisters, husbands, mothers and sons.

But I must admit I was slightly relieved to climb the stairs back to ground level, to leave the weight of their worlds behind me and step back onto the streets of Paris. After all, I had a lot more exploring to do.